Friday, October 16. D-Day.

Friday, October 16, 2009.

This date seemed SO far away when honours started at the end of february.

When I handed in my literature review in April, Oct 16 seemed so far away.

When I gave my reading topic presentation in July, Oct 16 still seemed so far away.

When I stopped doing experiments in the lab at the end of September, Oct 16 still seemed a reasonable distance away (three weeks - plenty of time!)

However, October 16 did arrive. And it arrived quickly.

I did not make October 16th with ease however. In the build up, there were many late nights had. The normal routine was to wake up, be at uni by roughly 1030-11am each day. I did not arrive home til between 2 and 4am most mornings. My life consisted of sleep for a few hours, wake up, eat breakfast, go to uni, come home from uni 17 or 18 hours later, fall in to bed, sleep, and do it all again. Two meals per day were eaten in the office at uni. Usually those two meals turned in to all night grazing, or first dinner, second dinner and third dinner, just to keep entertained and to keep the brain supplied with energy!

The final day/night before it was due, no sleep was had. That is correct. On thursday, October 15, I arrived at uni at roughly 1030am. I did not leave uni to go home again until 2.30pm, Friday October 16.

That last, crazy night, five crazed honours students stayed all night in the office on the third floor. There was much coke drank. and much pizza and chocolate eaten. and much work done. and many weird crazy moments that have since probably been forgotten as they only occured out of tiredness. But the morning of October 16 did roll around. in fact, I was awake to welcome it. At roughly 5.30am, whilst sitting at my desk in the office, the birds started to chirp (seriously, really annoying when you are trying to do work and all they wanna do is tweet and chirp!!). I decided come 9am that my thesis was pretty much complete, after an intense night of proof reading and fixing and last minute typing. Between 9 and 11 am, much formatting occurred, with a trial print run....followed by what I thought was the first real deal copy, only to discover there was a formatting error with page numbers...yes...a whole thesis worth of paper was wasted....

Eventually, two complete copies were printed, and taken to the Xerox shop for binding. They were handed in, along with an electronic copy of my epistle. Yes, my epistle.

My thesis was massive. And it was handed in at roughly 11.45am, on Friday, October 16. All 144 pages of it. All 28, 587 words of it. All 32, 306 words of it if you count the gigantic reference list at the back.

Thank goodness for that!! That evening (ok it was still the afternoon), I was in my bed, fast asleep by 4pm, and I did not wake up again until 9.30am the next day. Bliss.

Pity I still have a seminar to give next thursday. It is nearly over!!